The Conference Board's consumer confidence index for June dropped sharply to 52.9, which is a horrible underperformance of expectations given that consensus had forecast a reading of 62.
Consumers’ short-term outlook, which had improved significantly last month, turned more pessimistic in June. Those anticipating an improvement in business conditions over the next six months decreased to 17.2 percent from 22.8 percent, while those expecting conditions will worsen rose to 14.9 percent from 11.9 percent.